Review of hydropathy, or the water-cure / by John Forbes.

  • Forbes, John, Sir, 1787-1861.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Review of hydropathy, or the water-cure / by John Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    14/28
    Our purpose, in this article, being carefully and calmly to investigate the real merits of the system now so widely established under the name of hydropathy, we hold ovrselves absolved from mixing up this investi- gation with any considerations whatever respecting the merits or demer- its of those who practice it. If it shall appear, as we believe it will on further examination, that the external application of cold water is capable of being beneficially applied in the cure of diseases, in modes of greater efficacy, and to much great- er extent than has been hitherto practiced by medical men, there remains only one course for the members of the profession to pursue, viz : to adopt the improvements, regardless of their origin or their past or present re- lations. When the religious reformer proposed to adopt profane airs to church psalmody, saying that he saw no good reason why the devil should have all the good tunes to himself, he is generally supposed to have acted as wisely as he thought shrewdly and spoke quaintly. In like manner, we see no good reason why the doctors of the orthodox school should refuse to accept good things, even at the hand of the hydropathists. For our own part, we avow ourselves of such a catholic spirit, and so lowly-minded withal, as to be ready to grasp any proffered good in the way of Healing, whosoever may be the offerers, and wheresoever they may have found it. It is not the demerits of the donor or the birth-place of the gift, that, in such a case, we are bound to look to; but simply whether it is qualified to aid us in our glorious and divine mission of soothing the pains of our fellow-men. If it is so qualified, the baseness of its source will be lost in the glory of its use ; and if aught of its ori- ginal impurity still attaches to its application in our hands, the fault will be in us, not in it. A saint may sing the devil's tunes without contami- nation ; a hero may wield the weapon he has wrested from a robber or a murderer; the medicament or the formula of the most errant quack may be hallowed in the prescription of the true physician. It must be acknowledged that cold water, applied in the manner of the hydropathists, is a powerful modifier of the condition of the human body, both in health and disease, and, when weighed in the therapeutic bal- ance with other remedies, merits, at least, a fair trial in legitimate prac- tice. It is a consideration of great importance how the remedy shall best be applied in the ordinary practice of medicine. We believe that distinct bathing establishments will be found best for giving full effect to the hy- dropathic system, although we believe, also, that many parts of it may be adopted in ordinary practice at the patients' own homes. If hydro- pathy is, as we believe, a therapeutic agent of great power and value it would be worse than absurd to exclude it from legitimate medicine. The extraordinary revivifying effect of the cold plunge bath, after the system has been excited by artificial heat, is testified by various evidence of the most unquestionable kind. Numerous travellers have spoken of this very enthusialtically; among others, Stevens, the American, in his